So I managed to visit the Fragments of Tokyo exhibition at M Place in Shinjuku Gyoenmae and have to say I was impressed. Four very different styles of photography and each with a wonderful and different perspective of Tokyo.
If you missed it you’ll have to bug them to put on another show. Below is each members flickr stream although to really do any of these pictures justice you need to see them printed. It was really a different and exciting experience to see them printed and presented as a series. Congratulations to the four of you.
Shot at about 5:55am on the 1st Jan 2010 in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Managed to wake up at 4 and leave at 4:20am. Never actually saw the sun but was lucky enough to get a bit of colour in the clouds before everything went a flat bright colour.
My next trip back there will be with a view to achieve something very different.
Words of advice from the inexperienced. Wash your negatives thoroughly and DON’T change the type of film you shoot unless you have experience with the new film you plan to use.
I’m a bit disappointed that I traveled thousands of kilometers to meet up with the family (which is hard considering everyone lives in a different state) and manage to destroy all my black and white film in an afternoon.
I shall, from this point, revert to my tried and trusted film stock and developers. Not that there is anything wrong with what I’ve just ruined. Just that I don’t want to have to spend more money learning the in’s and out’s of another stock when the current one already serves me well.
On a recent trip to Australia I managed to find these little spores which I’d previously spotted in Japan. Thanks to Brett for giving me one of several random rolls of expired film which I (for only the second time ever) cross processed.
Woke at 4am to arrive on the island at around 4:45am. After checking the perimeter I spotted a fisherman heading up a path. Follow the local knowledge. Sure enough I found the spot I was looking for although the sun was rising from behind the island. Unfortunately there was no way to get around and the view from that point is not as good anyway. Still, it was surprisingly busy with fishermen for 4:45am (I’m betting most of them get there at 4 or so).
On my little adventure to Enoshima last weekend at 4am, not only did I manage to get sick but I tried a Film / Developer combination I hadn’t seen before.
I’ve used Ilford Pan F on occasion and, while expensive, have liked the results I’ve gotten so far. My trip to Enoshima was finally a chance to shoot something at ISO100 (developing with Diafine pushes it a stop to 100) so I thought I’d try it developed in Diafine.
Well, as you can see by the results, it’s pretty damn dark. But, looking at the shot of the old man (second slide), I couldn’t have really exposed it more or the shirt would have been blown. The background at the time was not at all dark and the day was overcast so there were no shadows so in theory more of the background should be visible.
If you are going to use this combination, make sure you don’t have any dark area’s in your shot or you’re likely to get blacks.
Went out the other weekend in search of a semi reasonable location to shoot something other than night city action. thoroughly uninteresting I have to say. Half a roll shot but some how I get the feeling that this place could have potential. Maybe because I walked 6km to reach this spot in the middle of a summers day my judgment of the place has been affected.
So there I was, packs of ice in hand, Rodinal at the ready and the cold water running at 24c. hmm. I figured I had this problem solved by putting my container of rodinal into a container of ice water to drop the temp. Seems that I was a little off with that theory. Next I tired putting the ice into the water the rodial was to go in. Not sure which batch came out better but I definately got a few dodgy negs out of it. Moral of the story…be super careful in summer when developing and always have ice on hand.
The image above might be a bit small but the shot starts to break up in the dark tones towards the top. Bummer.
Shot from the new Rolleiflex. Cake doesn’t look that good in monochrome but with a Rolleinar 2 the tones become super soft.
Shot on TMAX400-2 @800 developed in D76
